Posted on 06/16/2019 4:55:18 AM PDT by CharlesOConnell
In Captains Courageous, with Spencer Tracey, Freddy Batholomew is a blowhard millionaire's son who is socially, poorly adjusted. He uses his father's incredible wealth, to bully his classmates and even his teacher, but he's roundly disliked, and ostracized. While on an ocean liner, he unsuccessfully tries to impress some other boys by eating 5 ice cream sodas. When he has to throw up, to escape the mocking boys, he runs into a lifeboat area to evade their ridicule while purging his overindulgence, and manages to fall overboard into the ocean.
Instances of people falling overboard into the open ocean are rather commonly reported in the news. Usually they are lost, but if by chance their accidents are observed and a life-preserver is thrown to them, is that the end of the story, do we just say, "oh, well, you have a floatation device, you're okay now"?
No, we have to pull them in. The life-preserver, the lifesaver, is only part of the formula for saving their lives. There is also a rope, which must be attached to the life-preserver, and must be used to finally accomplish their salvation.
Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and man. But on the man side of the equation, unlike the radical individuality most typified by J.J. Rousseau, we who life the life of Christians do so in communities. But even then, we do not abide as atomistic individualists. We live our Jesus-oriented life in relation to our fellows. "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." – Hebrews 10:25.
Jesus' first disciple was his mother, who gave us the total account of his early life and who "treasured these things up in her heart". "A sword will pierce your own soul too, so that the secret thoughts of many hearts might be revealed". On the cross, he gave his mother to John to take in his home, but when you take your master's mother, she takes care of you.
Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.
And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. …
And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. - Rev 11:19 -- 12:17
She forms the body of Christ. She schools her son's disciples. Those who won't attend her school, remain ignorant.
We are in a time when any merely human institution would be washed away. Our churches are going under the shadow of a new Heresy of Ba'al of Peor, as when the Hebrew people were successfully attacked and overwhelmed through human sexuality. Our churches are now pro-gay and as soon as the civil authority authorizes child sex, they will be indistinguishable from the denizens of the town of Sodom: "Bring them out that we may know them".
Jesus' mother forms the few of the elect who will resist being fooled by the great apostasy. Those who will not avail themselves of the lifeline of Mary, will be lost.
Placemarker
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Read Luke 1 |
Ooops!
Sorry ‘bout that ‘son’ thing.
I must be channeling Foghorn Leghorn this morning.
No doubt, we all will still be stirring...
Whether Hebrews was possibly originally a address to Christians (not to evangelize but to exhort) meeting in synagogues or houses (believers wherever they could: Justin Martyr says he met above the baths) is not that important. However, while Christians were persecuted by a class of Jews (and locally excommunicated from the synagogue in Jn. 9:22), yet the synagogues were not controlled like as Watchtower houses, or even Catholic churches ("Scholars have noted the lack of evidence for a central organization or leadership structure that oversaw the different synagogues" - https://bible.org/article/origins-church-rome), thus before his conversion, it was in synagogues that Saul found Christians:
And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee: (Acts 22:19)
And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. (Acts 26:11)
The Jewish encyclopedia informs:
The attachment of the Christian to Jewish customs may be particularly inferred from six sermons, delivered against the Jews in Antioch (about 366-387) by John Chrysostom, later patriarch of Constantinople. On Sabbaths and holidays, Christians, especially women, visited the synagogue in preference to the church. They also preferred to bring their disputes to Jewish judges and took their oaths in the synagogue. - http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1586-antioch
Likewise early on many synagogues offered to Paul and others a means of meeting actual evangelization.
And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks." (Acts 18:4)
And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: but he himself entered into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews. When they desired him to tarry longer time with them, he consented not; But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you, if God will. And he sailed from Ephesus. (Acts 18:19-21)
And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. (Acts 19:8)
Historian Philip Alexander described a thriving Messianic Jewish community in the Galilee during the second century AD when rabbinic Judaism was emerging. Messianic Jews attended synagogues, lived among other Jews, and practiced Torah. - https://jewsforjesus.org/jewish-resources/community/messianic-jews-a-brief-history/
That would change due to the rejection of Christ and His followers and persecution of them by many Jews, resulting in such antagonism as was expressed by Chrysostom:
How, Chrysostom asked, can Christians “have the slightest converse” with Jews, “the most miserable of all men”? He went on to describe Jews 36 A CONVENIENT HATRED: THE HISTORY OF ANTISEMITISM as “inveterate murderers, destroyers, men possessed by the devil.” To him, the sy nagogue was “a place of shame and ridicule,” “the domicile of the devil.” Indeed, he told his congregation that Jews worshipped the devil with rites that are “criminal and impure” and that the synagogue was “an assembly of criminals,” “a den of thieves,” and “a cavern of devils.”
Why did Chrysostom believe Jews were degenerate? Because of their “odious assassination of Christ.” And for this crime, Chrysostom declared, there was “no expiation possible, no indulgence, no pardon.” In his view, the rejection and dispersal of the Jews was the work of God, not of emperors. He insisted that God had always hated the Jews, and therefore, on Judgment Day, God would say to Judaizers, “Depart from Me, for you have had dealings with murderers.” [John Chrysostom, “Chrysostom’s Homilies Against the Jews.”]
Chrysostom’s attacks had little to do with Jewish practice or belief. He was not interested in real Jews; it was the “Judaizing” Christians he was attacking . In opposing them, however, he demonized “the Jews.” And he was not alone. Other Christian leaders in Chrysostom’s day wrote in similar ways about Jews - Phyllis Goldstein: A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism; https://www.facinghistory.org/sites/default/files/Ch.2.pdf
It could have been the Apostle Paul.
Then why are we arguing?
The Pontifical Biblical Communion... Paul can be regarded as the indirect author of Hebrews. Researchers are free to explore this matter.
Sounds like what I postulate. But for RCs, the Pontifical Biblical Communion (accused of being liberal by some RCs) versus Trent?
maybe this.....
28Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?”
29Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
John 6:28-29 NASB
It is interesting to not how many times in that Bread of Life discourse (John 6) that Jesus stated believe as opposed to how many times He say eat me and drink my blood. Yet Catholiciism insists that the more numerous assertions of BELIEVE are negated by the few ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’. And the context reveals why ... so RCs refuse the context.
‘interesting to note’ ... old fingers miss keys occasionally.
Our RC friends miss the point of the Lord’s Supper.....do this in remembrance of Me.
It is a result of salvation; not a means of salvation.
it is also a beautiful gift to feed our spiritual life. it is grace that we can see, smell and touch. We are physical beings and He knows we need physical gifts.
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